So before we start the installation make sure that you have your Harddrive formatted and Ready or a blank Virtual Machine Ready.

Now go and download the Ubuntu Server 9.04 Edition from

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download-server

It is compatible with both AMD and INTEL, the only option you need to look as is whether you want to run a 32 bit or 64 bit version, most likely it will be 32bit and I will be going through the steps for the 32 bit version.

So apart from downloading ubuntu you can get it sent to you for FREE or buy the DVD, it can take up to 4 weeks for the FREE version to reach you.

New Machine

So for a setup on a new machine simply burn the .ISO image to a CD or DVD and insert it into your DVD drive.

Now when your computer starts up you'll want to press F8, F10, or F11 depending on your motherboard do enter the boot options. Alternatively you can enter your BIOS using DEL or F1 and configure boot options to use the CD-ROM drive as your First Boot Priority.

Virtual Machine

Installing on a Virtual Machine is a lot simpler , just install DAEMON tools or an image mounting software and mount the image on a virtual drive, and start up your blank virtual machine.

Now its time to detect your keyboard layout , you can choose no if you know exactly what type of keyboard you have (as in layout of keys to specific country requirements) . Its easier to go through the keyboard layout test and hit yes or no if the letter appears on your keyboard

Now its time to choose a hostname , you can make up anything you want its recommended to keep it nice and short so its easier to access through a command line only interface. Here I just chose the default name ubuntu

So now we are up to partitioning options, We can select to use the guided method or setup things manually, here I will just choose Guided

You can also choose to use LVM , which stands for logical volume management. LVM role is to basically allow the server administrator to have full control over there partitions and create logical volume's from physical drives.

This is very useful for a server that may require modification of partitions, its very common to find you have made a partition too small and need to expand it and this is possible with basic partitioning programs like gparted but usually require your server be restarted LVM allows you to resize your paritions and keep your server up.

Here I will use entire disk with LVM, if your not so worried about running out of room on your partitions then use entire disk would be an acceptable option.

Now Ubuntu goes through the process of configuring APT (advanced packaging tool) this tool allows you to download and install updates for your server. example get openssh apt-get -y install openssh

Freezes? - Some users may notice some freezing or sometimes the installation appears to stop completely this is usually due to the Ubuntu server being busy and your computer unable to contact it, if this occurs it may be necessary to try again later or just leave it for a while.

Now once you've selected the software you want for your server, ubuntu will finishing installing all the needed software.

Starting Ubuntu Server 9.04

So once you've completed the installation select CONTINUE and your system will reboot , remember to remove the CD or unmount the image at this point.

Now once it loads up simply log in with your username and password. :) that's it for the basic installation instructions. let me know if you have any questions

So now you've logged into your server there a few more basic things you need to know.

First to log into the ROOT priveledged mode use

sudo su

then enter your password for your user

Configuring Network Interfaces in Ubuntu

vi /etc/network/interfaces

the above command will allow you to edit the network configuration file , to start editing the file press insert and start to input your network settings.

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
        address 192.168.0.100
        netmask 255.255.255.0
        network 192.168.0.0
        broadcast 192.168.0.255
        gateway 192.168.0.1

So above we have the network setup with auto ethernet interface 0, 
setup with a static ip address, you can also use dhcp by replacing 
static with dynamic. 

Once you have entered all your values follow the steps to write the 
changes

1. Press ESC
2. Hold Shift and press ";" Key
3. Now write wq , to write then quit
4. use q! to exit without making changes